


The Somersault We Call Forbearance

by jouissant



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Spit As Lube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:27:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21904462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: When you are invisible you see all sorts of things.
Relationships: Commander James Fitzjames/Thomas Jopson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 90
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	The Somersault We Call Forbearance

**Author's Note:**

> For my Terror Bingo square "profoundly unhelpful." 
> 
> Thanks as always to what-alchemy for the beta! 
> 
> Title from "A Secret Matter of Grave Importance" by Dara Wier.

Some men might take unkindly to invisibility, but to Thomas it is only the sign of a job well done. He has lost count of all the times the captain has looked up in the middle of some idle moment, and said _Jopson, I did not see you there._ To which Thomas, having been present perhaps for hours, simply nods at him and carries on.

When you are invisible you see all sorts of things. The captain told him once that if there were a medal for secret-keeping, he would see it pinned on Thomas’s breast, and Thomas had glowed with sinful pride to hear it. Though it was not always so: as a child Thomas was a horrible blabbermouth. He liked too well the pleasure of telling, which made the wash of guilt afterwards worth the strife. But now he is grown Thomas has learned that greater pleasure comes from keeping silent, from the vague drift of all the secrets inside him. He likes how they feel, as though he is a glassy bay in which certain sunken vessels might be glimpsed below but never discerned in their entirety. And he knows the warmth of trust is the greatest pleasure of all.

Thomas does not need to love a man to keep his secrets, but it certainly helps. Makes things more enjoyable. Eases the way, when the going is hard. Secrets are quite like love, he supposes. The body bends to keep them, doubling and redoubling in kaleidoscopic accommodation. This is why Thomas is so eager to aid the captain when he consigns himself to his great sickness. He knows there will be a very many secrets. They will need a ready hand to mop them up.

He would have chosen to do this for the captain even were he not obliged by his station. This is the truth of it: that though Thomas delights not in Crozier’s infirmity he does delight in the acts of care it necessitates. So he is here with the captain, chamberpot or wash-rag or water cup in hand, from first to dog watch. If he himself sleeps it is in snatches, nigh as fevered as his charge. He tends Crozier with temerity. If Lieutenant Little, if Doctor Macdonald think him overcommitted they say nothing; rather, Thomas thinks, they are grateful not to have to attend to it themselves, and he would not condemn them. Who better, after all? Who better? And oh, that pride glows within him again, nearly to disastrous ends. For were Thomas not so attentive, and were he not so abominably tired, there is a passing chance that what happens to him one particular night might never have happened at all.

Some weeks into the captain’s sickness, Thomas goes to sleep on the cot he has set up in a corner of the great cabin. He tumbles into unconsciousness and tumbles back out just as quickly, roused by he knows not what. He rises as if still in a dream and returns to the captain’s sickbed. He must be sure to be there, says Doctor Macdonald, should the captain have a fit, for this is their greatest fear as the drink leaves him. Crozier has quailed and cried at unseen things, pawed at the bulkheads and scratched at his own skin, claiming insects nested there, and these have been trying moments for Thomas. On balance he thinks he might be all right with another fit.

As soon as he is awake he is listening, listening. He does not hear Crozier, the rusted hinge of his voice, all screamed out. It must be powerfully painful to rid yourself of drink. The captain has a fractious brain, fits or not; he holds his head and rocks back and forth and lows like a bull. Thomas does not hear the captain in the berth. He hears another voice.

Thomas dislikes when visitors arrive without him knowing. For one thing, they should be properly announced, even if the captain is not strictly here to receive them. For another, Thomas would prefer to be sure the captain is presentable. He is certain that when Crozier is through this he will appreciate the safety in it, knowing that Thomas kept him neat when prying eyes were on him. Eyes other than Thomas’s, because Thomas’s eyes see only what they are required to see to do their duty. They skip helpfully over aught else.

He comes to the door of Crozier’s berth to see Captain Fitzjames at the bedside. Thomas forgives himself a bit of a start; he is half dreaming, after all, and it is not often he has seen Fitzjames with Crozier in anything resembling repose. He has removed his greatcoat and jacket and holds them on his lap where he hunches on the three-legged stool from which Thomas leans to tend the captain. On top Fitzjames wears only his gansey with the sleeves pushed up. Thomas keeps the room closed for warmth until some especially grim miasma needs airing.

Thomas is loyal but he is no trained dog; he does not despise Fitzjames simply because the captain does. Thomas would not recommend such passions in a steward. For if your master were to change his mind, then where would you be? Chasing your tail and trying to wrap your own head around it. No, better to reserve judgement, which is what Thomas has always done with those who are not the captain’s favorites. If he needs assistance he will encourage himself to think of what Crozier would admire in a man, were there something admirable to see. If Crozier liked him, what would he like? Thomas can nearly always find an answer. And then he will have it handy, if ever he is asked.

Thomas already knows what Crozier would see in Fitzjames. What he had wanted to see far back as Antarctica. Fitzjames was taken with magnetics, apparently, and curious. (“Not unlike someone else of my acquaintance, eh, Francis?”) Captain Ross had wanted him for the southern expedition, but he was young and untried. They had stood on deck and talked of him, Thomas off Crozier’s right shoulder, ready with his hat and spyglass. When next he heard Fitzjames’s name Thomas had recalled the conversation immediately. He had been pleased, for the captain did so delight in magnetics and astronomy, and should like a well-versed compatriot. But somewhere along the line the association had soured with no Ross to sweeten it again, and it was not Thomas’s place to try.

Thomas thinks it curious Fitzjames should have come to see the captain in the middle of the night. He has come alone, by the look of it; that is unwise with the creature prowling about, for all it has lately been silent. He wonders why Fitzjames did not wake him, why he came into the room unbidden in the first place. There might have been any manner of foulness here and Thomas not on hand to clean. He scans the room and sees nothing any more out of place than usual. He sniffs the air and smells nothing more offensive than the usual must, overcut with a spoiled milk smell of vomit.

He is used to this and worse; Fitzjames, presumably, is not. Yet he leans quite close to the captain, as though he does not notice it at all. He murmurs something Thomas cannot hear. From the desperate cant of the words he imagines it may be some manner of prayer. Fitzjames has found the captain’s wooden hand beneath the coverlet and drawn it out, and Thomas stares at this as a child marks another who has picked up his own toy. As Thomas watches, Fitzjames brings the captain’s hand up to his face and brushes his lips over the back of it. He resumes chanting his litany against the knuckles as his free hand curls over the captain’s skull and rights the stringy web of hair which has come undone from Thomas’s careful parting.

Thomas is shocked not so much by the touch as by the thoughtlessness of it. There is no especial reverence here. Were Thomas to take the captain’s hand and kiss it he would do so in all the fullness of time, would learn each whorl and vein and callus. He would not simply buss the thing and go on prattling, as though he had done it a thousand times before and would again, as though he would be granted that, as though he could take it to the bank—

Can Fitzjames have been here before?

How might he have managed it? Thomas is always here. He does not take leisure or dine in the mess with the men; he has not done that for ages, even before the captain took to his bed. He gulps from a tin when he has a spare moment, when his belly demands it, for he does not often feel hunger anymore, must listen for a growl or feel for a swooping lightness in his head. But of course he sleeps, any man must sleep, and in this he may have left himself—the captain—vulnerable. But look at him, treating the captain of _Erebus_ like some assassin stealing through the night. If Fitzjames wishes to visit Crozier only when the other is insensate, and then only to say tender prayers over him, then what business is it of Thomas’s? A sensible man, even a sensible steward, would turn and creep back to the cot and claim another few minutes’ shut-eye. Were Crozier in distress Thomas has no doubt Fitzjames would wake him. But Thomas does not turn to go. He remains in the doorway and watches, and as he does Fitzjames leans over and kisses Crozier’s greasy forehead. Thomas gulps. There is a feeling here about his throat, about his breast. He has leaned against a frozen thing and knows how the pain will be when he tries to move away.

That he is caught out is not Thomas’s fault. He is invisible, after all. But there comes a scuffle above them and then down the side of the ship. Most probably a hunk of ice disturbed by wind and knocked free, but the creature is on all their minds, and Fitzjames whips his head around as though to trace the noise. Thomas is stilled by sudden fear and does not conceal himself in time. When Fitzjames sees him he is still holding the captain’s hand. His brows rush up to his hairline, and he drops it. The noise dies away and does not return.

Fitzjames finds his feet, piling his uniform on the floor beside the captain’s bed. He sways a little, as though the drink has run out of Crozier and into him. Thomas imagines Fitzjames on the worn ice-track between the ships. Perhaps he brought a bottle to warm him along the way, as Thomas knows the captain used to do.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” says Thomas into the air between them.

“Mister Jopson.” Fitzjames is holding his hands before him, as though to ward Thomas off. Thomas cannot keep from looking at the hand that held the captain’s, as though it should look different somehow, anointed with some extra shine. “I assure you, this is not how it appears.”

Already in his mind it is as though he has seen nothing. He ought to tell Fitzjames this, but he does not. Instead he addresses him with a blandness Crozier would recognize as Thomas Jopson in a bit of a state. But Fitzjames does not know him.

“Are you seeking something from the captain’s cabin, sir? I am under orders to furnish anything you request.”

“Jopson—”

“A map, perhaps. An atlas?”

Fitzjames comes closer. In the scant space of the berth he is nearly atop him. “Do not be obtuse, Jopson.”

“Obtuse, sir?”

“Obtuse, Jopson,” says Fitzjames. “You know the meaning of the word, surely.”

Thomas has never been so near to Fitzjames. He has never truly appreciated the breadth and height of him. He manages to be both a large man and a slight one, dependent on the angle. Crowding Thomas in the doorway he feels very large indeed, though lean and strong. He looks as though he wants to put his hands on Thomas, to hold him back, as though he thinks he might go running through the ship crowing about what he has seen. As though Thomas were even capable of such indiscretion. The very thought offends him, though when he thinks it through he is unsure if he is more offended by the insinuation or the fact of Fitzjames here in Crozier’s berth, taking liberties.

“How was it meant to appear, Captain?”

“Pardon?”

“You said it was not how it appeared. You sitting there beside Captain Crozier. I only wondered how you meant it, sir.”

They stand together in the doorway face to face, the frame at each of their backs. There is half an inch of space between their bodies, their wool-clad chests, between Thomas’s crimson jumper and Fitzjames’s cream. Both disheveled. Thomas is up from bed and Fitzjames has no excuse.

“Well?” says Thomas softly.

A scrabble of feet on the boards and Fitzjames is on him with a cry. Unable to resist, apparently. Like most men who have secrets he cannot simply let his sink; he thinks he must weight it, force it down. He does not know that never works. He will have to learn.

For a few moments Thomas lets Fitzjames roust him about. There is little he can do in the doorway but fist Thomas’s jumper and shake him, push him this way and that. He cannot even draw his arm back to throw a punch. Perhaps Fitzjames will muscle him into the great cabin and lay him out cold, and Thomas would rather he did not. “You don’t want to do this, sir,” Thomas says, as he is thrust against the door frame, bruises threatening up and down his spine.

“Damn your eyes, Jopson. You don’t know what I want to do.”

“I do, sir,” Thomas says. “I think you will find that I do.”

Without thinking Thomas has braced his hands against Fitzjames’s chest. Fitzjames stills, so they are no longer struggling but holding one another in the doorway. His eyes are downcast, his mouth twisting. Thomas holds his breath. He lets his hands drop from Fitzjames’s chest to his waist. Fitzjames scarcely seems to notice; his hair has fallen over his face and Thomas fights a peculiar urge to brush it back behind his ears.

Fitzjames looks lost. Quite unfair of Thomas, then, to know exactly where he is. His hands are still on Fitzjames. His thumbs move over the wool, Fitzjames breathing hard beneath Thomas’s hands, his belly rising and falling, an animal smell coming off him. Fitzjames groans.

The kiss is open mouthed and stained with wine. There is no finesse, nor is there even a hint of chastity, but Thomas has braced for it like a man walking into the sea. He catches Fitzjames against him, against the door frame. Thomas has practice at this, though none since he left port. Odd to be here with this man for whom he has no specific affection, and as a proxy besides, but he kisses Fitzjames back and Fitzjames lets him, surges into his kisses with clear need, and if there is one thing Thomas understands it is need, and how to meet it.

He can feel Fitzjames hard against his body. Perhaps he has been so the entire time; perhaps he is so very lost his cock fills just to set foot in a room with Crozier, perhaps he has had to school it, to take all that need and ball it up and put it someplace else, and perhaps tonight that space has overflown.

“You are always here, Jopson,” Fitzjames moans. “You are always in attendance.” 

He has come before, then. Tried this before. Found the captain awake, found Thomas there. Odd to be here, yes, and odd also is the envy he hears in Fitzjames’s voice.

“That is my job, sir.”

“This is not your job.”

No, this is not his job. This is service of another sort. Not unconsidered by Thomas, not entirely out of the question. But he is not Fitzjames’s steward. “Unusual circumstances,” Thomas says. He has moved a hand lower between them.

Fitzjames laughs. “Just so,” he says. Thomas finds the length of him, gives him a squeeze to make the laugh sigh out high and breathy. “Oh, just so.”

Thomas will not undress him entirely. There is not time and chill comes quick here; there are corners of the ship that have drafts shooting up through them like cold fingers, like Thomas’s fingers on Fitzjames’s belly that make him gasp as Thomas pulls his linens free of his trousers and undoes one row of buttons, Fitzjames the other, unravelling in tandem, both aware of what they are going to do. The knowledge of it is a fourth man in the room. The third is dormant as a rock, hibernating, and thank God for it. Thomas has seen so much of him awake and lashing himself to ribbons.

Thomas has a curious wish to put his mouth on Fitzjames, to suck a mark onto his hip. His trousers and his small clothes are down around his thighs and Thomas is still buttoned up. Not what you think of with a captain, but men like what they like. Thomas likes it any which way. He kisses Fitzjames again and sets his weight against him so Fitzjames stumbles back against the opposite side of the doorframe. A gust from his lungs. Thomas bites it off his lips and slips a hand down along Fitzjames’s bare thigh, reaches through his legs to grip a handful of his arse. Fitzjames shudders. He moves his feet apart so his trousers drop further towards his ankles.

Thomas smiles at him. Some men might gloat to know a thing like this, to know what this captain wants, but Thomas is not like that. Thomas is a secret-keeper and you cannot choose what you swallow down. You cannot judge it. You must take it gladly.

“Is there something that you need, sir? Only tell me.”

Fitzjames looks at him desperately. Thomas will not make him say it, will do him this kindness. “Turn ‘round, then,” Thomas says, and there is no hesitation before Fitzjames does, turns and sets his cheek to the doorframe and shoves his arse back against Thomas, who has not even gotten himself out of his trousers, has only just realized he is hard too, has recognized it for the afterthought it is.

Fitzjames shivers when Thomas touches him. Thomas spits in his hand, has nothing but that and mutters his apologies, but Fitzjames is undaunted, curses, tells him to get on with it for Christ’s sake, and this is a little more like a captain and so sets Thomas’s heart thumping, makes him confident.

Thomas feels his way, lines up. He’s very tight, Fitzjames, and will not admit Thomas fully. Thomas takes himself in hand and fucks him shallowly, applies more spit, the drag of flesh nearly unpleasant. Fitzjames appears unbothered; he has yanked his gansey up to bare more of him and holds the collar between his teeth, and he reaches back for Thomas’s hips to encourage him. And so Thomas works himself inside entirely, until at last he has come to rest with his forehead against Fitzjames’s back and they are one thing. Grappling in the doorway, wrapped around one another, nearly still. Thomas clings, one arm around Fitzjames’s bare waist. He kisses blindly, tugs at the wool to find some skin. In the corner Crozier moans in his sleep. If he wakes he will think himself in the midst of some fantasia. They ought to be mortified but Thomas feels how they both know full well what they do, how they both need him here to make this what it has to be.

Fitzjames speaks, the words so small they could disappear even in this room, which feels at the moment the size of a coffin. “Will he come through it?”

“The doctor is hopeful. He keeps down food and water, and he has not had another fit.”

“Had he one?”

Thomas nods against Fitzjames’s back.

“Why did no one tell me?”

“I would not trouble you with it,” says Thomas, as though it were so simple, as though there were no rank between them, Crozier simply a mutual friend and not their keystone, the bright star wandering over their sky. He moves his hand over the plane of Fitzjames’s chest, over and over, almost petting.

In truth he had not thought about Fitzjames at all. He had forgotten there was a ship called _Erebus_ or anyone aboard her, anyone outside the room where he set a rag between the captain’s teeth that he should not shatter them, should not bite clean through his tongue. He has not thought of Fitzjames once since the night the captain hit him, and here they are.

“In future—trouble me, Jopson. Thomas.”

Thomas sighs. “Yes, sir.”

They fall silent, and presently Fitzjames begins to move again, a subtle shift fore and aft that makes him moan as though it pains him. Pleasure hooks Thomas below the navel. Fitzjames’s body is a hot vise, all his motions deliberate on and around Thomas but small as when he asked after Crozier, a careful feeling to them, a chipping feeling as though he is a slab of stone Thomas chisels.

They hold hands over Fitzjames’s cock, Fitzjames’s palm covering Thomas’s, guiding. Thomas is always happy to be a means, and the end is very close now. He lays his head on Fitzjames’s shoulder and allows himself to be moved. He is silent at the moment of his climax, feels joy, as ever, at his restraint. Fitzjames quakes in his arms and holds Thomas’s cupped hand to his mouth, a muzzle into which he pours: Francis, Francis, Francis.

They are still for a time and then Fitzjames whines quietly and Thomas wriggles free. Fitzjames stands facing the doorframe, seems again as though he does not know where he is.Thomas straightens up, wipes his hands off on his trousers, pats his oiled hair. All to rights. 

“Shall I clean you up, sir?” There is a bit of mess glistening on Fitzjames’s thighs. 

“What? Oh. No thank you, Jopson.” Fitzjames turns towards him, a drowsy shuffle with his trousers around his ankles. His gansey has slipped back down now and his cock peeks from under the ribbing, which Fitzjames tugs lower still. 

“Are you certain, sir? I’ve a rag just--” 

He nods at the bed, the larval figure of Crozier. Fitzjames drags his eyes over that way like dragging a sledge. He bites his lip, waves a defeated hand as though to say, do what you will. Thomas snatches the rag and wipes Fitzjames between the legs as though rubbing down a horse. Discards the rag and makes quick work of small clothes, trousers. Turns him back toward the wall, looks at the back of his neck clean and white as he reaches around his waist to do up Fitzjames’s flies by touch. He is deft, is Thomas. He will not kiss the back of that neck though the thought may present itself. 

They do a fumbling ballet with the braces. “I’ll take it from here,” says Fitzjames. But he is at sixes and sevens with waistcoat, jacket, greatcoat and he is pleased, Thomas thinks, when Thomas tuts and bids him stand still. A king will still obey his boyhood nurse. Crozier frets at times when dressed. Once, years ago, he threatened to undo some stitching Thomas had laboured over. Thomas smacked his hand, unthinking, and they both stood shocked until Crozier laughed, a gentle thunder Thomas still feels all through him. 

When Fitzjames is done up straight he seems to gather his authority back around him, as though he had strewn it around the berth with his clothes. Nowhere is the man who curled against Thomas, who took Thomas into him as though plastering some ache, but Thomas feels no specific loss. Every man is at least two men and he will bolster whichever facade is presented. Even if there are some old fine bones beneath. Even if he favors these. 

Fitzjames clears his throat. “Well,” he says. “I fear this visit was profoundly unhelpful. And yet, a balm all the same.” He is smiling at Thomas, just a little. There is some uncertainty in it. 

In Thomas’s mind, it is already as though nothing has happened. He can feel the last hour drifting out of sight. He wants to tell Fitzjames this, but he worries it will sound too much like a threat. Secrets make men hold themselves apart, make them bend away from hurt like a trained vine.

“I wish to thank you,” Fitzjames says. “For your careful attention. If he does come out of it, you must know it will be down to you.” 

Thomas smiles at him. “And it will have been my pleasure, sir,” he says.


End file.
